Ange

methinks you're right - it's just desperation! It's incredibly frustrating (and I really want to know who that PM was from - I'm sure you know how us ladies hate to not know!) OK - I admit defeat - I'm fed up with fighting with my dongle tonight (I'm sure it's cold and tired as well!) If the person who sent me the PM reads this could they please re-send - it's bugging the hell out of me! Night night folks

A PM arrived - I know it did! The top part of the box appeared - then my dongle died and all was lost. So sorry to whoever sent me a PM just now - it's gone and when I got back on there were no new ones in my mailbox. The dongle is hanging outside the window now (despite the draught) in the hope that'll make a difference.

Yay - enjoy! Keep us posted if you can

No she doesn't - and never has. Edited to add - just out of curiosity - where did that assumption come from?

We're very frugal with our power. The only things that have ever been plugged in until now are my laptop and the mobile phone chargers. We never have more that two lights turned on at a time. We need to run the engine for two hours a day to maintain that. All part of the learning curve (I'm off now before I throw my dongle in the canal!!)

The trouble is we need to completely upgrade the whole charging system. I've over-simplified our situation when I put our problems down to knackered batteries. It's not just the batteries - the alternator is far too small - we just don't know whether it's the batteries or the alternator that's at fault. We intend to install Smartguage, upgrade from 2 to 4 (new) batteries, install a larger alternator - possibly two. This requires funds and a certain amount of rejigging at the blunt end of the boat to accommodate these changes. We moved aboard in June and have coped really well with our limited power (thanks to the help from the forum). We thought we could (with a little help from our friends) watch an hour of TV a night as well. We're actually very close to having the funds in place to sort the electrics - maybe we were a bit premature in buying the TV (my fault - us women are absolutely no good at waiting!) Edit - double posted for the second time this evening - doh! (It's that bloody dongle of mine having a hissy fit!)

Thank you Casp - you've just put our problems with watching a bit of telly into perspective Dave & I (and hopefully Matt) will be there armed with windlasses - a bit of lockwheeling will make an excellent pre-banter meet up (I'm so definitely booking the Monday off work!) Roll on June!!! (far too many sleeps away to count!)

Alan - thanks for the suggestion - we'll definitely look into that (I'll follow the linky when I next borrow someone's wifi - my dongle is behaving badly today!) We only watch about an hour of TV per day so we're definitely not heavy users. Ditchcrawler - I wish the TV had come with a 12volt lead to plug into the cigarette lighter connection! The TV is 12 volt but we bought it from Currys and it's only designed for house use, so only has a 240 volt lead, with a 12 volt psu. Unfortunately our batteries / invertor can't cope (I had the same problem with my laptop when we first moved aboard) Nick - thanks for the offer. I've got Dave helping me now cos this has gone way over my head! We've got a 70 watt adaptor which ranges from 15 - 24 volt, do you think this would be powerful enough with your modification, or should we buy a 120 watt adaptor? Is there a chance of damaging the TV? (It's an JVC LCD). I'm fighting with a wayward dongle tonight so may have to pick this up again tomorrow (I can feel a night of Wetherspoons wifi and cheap beer looking very attractive tomorrow!) Edit for double post - bah!

Sorry - I'm on electrics again which is never a good thing I know! You folks were so helpful when I struggled with powering my laptop without the engine running (I can use it all evening now from an electricity point of view - the overheating issue is still a work in progress). I'm hoping you can give me some advice on powering our new TV. Fed up after missing the end of yet another TV program because of the lappy with its TV dongle dying on us, we bought a TV yesterday. For those that don't know, our boat batteries are knackered (soon to be replaced hopefully - the funds are nearly in place). We tried running the TV via our 150 watt inverter yesterday, within about a minute the inverter started squealing, then shut down, so we know that's not going to work without the engine running. Dave went to Maplins today to see if he could get a regulated DC power supply unit, similar to the one we use for the laptop (we'd been very careful to buy a 12 volt TV). The one we use for the lappy only goes down as far as 15 volt, so that's no good. The only 12 volt to 12 volt unit he could find was 4.5 amps, the TV is 5 amps. Does anyone know if there's such a beastie out there? It's killing me having a TV and only being able to watch it before 8pm when we have to turn the engine off A very late edit - apologies to those that answered before but I think it's important. I said about only being able to watch TV until 8pm and changed that to before because we don't actually put the TV on until there's a particular program we want to watch - which is invariably after 8pm - the wording looked like we were glued to the box until 8pm then had to turn it off, which is a million miles away from the truth

Agree with this sentiment 100%

Thanks Casp - I thought I was the only one ...

I think it's a great idea - I can envisage using it when we could do with a bit of help with a challenging flight of locks (another pair of hands would have been useful when we came up the Wigan Flight last summer). It'd be particularly good for single handed boaters to enlist a bit of assistance in exchange for a beer or two - always a satisfactory transaction

Aha, you're right - I just googled my Huwaei K3565 and it appears to be the same:- - Green Light You are connected to the GPRS/EDGE network (fast) - Blue Light You are connected to the 3G network (faster) - Cyan Light You are connected to the HSDPA (fastest) I've only seen green and blue so far

Thanks for all the informative replies - though I'm afraid some have gone straight over my head as I have very little knowledge of the technology involved. I can get my head round the idea of the signal bouncing around - I just have to figure out a way of catching the bugger!! I have noticed that the dongle sometimes flashes green and sometimes blue - I have wondered about the significance of the colour. This thread was next to long standing member again in View New Posts and now I'm talking about flashing dongles